Barclays: suspendered sentence

An aura of the red-braced Wall Street banker of yore clings to Jes Staley, chief executive of Barclays. Mr Staley is unafraid of tough decisions, opting to sell a muddled African division and bolster a decent investment banking franchise. Since last year, the bank's key capital bulwark has edged up 0.1 percentage points to 12.5 per cent of risk-weighted assets. Barclays expects to add another percentage point this year. At 8.2 per cent, these look pretty pathetic compared to the UK retail bank at 21.6 per cent.